


Fire Favours (Those That Favour Fire)

by Verasteine



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Community: consci_fan_mo, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verasteine/pseuds/Verasteine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wouldn't have happened if the dragon hadn't caught cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Favours (Those That Favour Fire)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://lefaym.livejournal.com/profile)[**lefaym**](http://lefaym.livejournal.com/) and [](http://significantowl.livejournal.com/profile)[**significantowl**](http://significantowl.livejournal.com/) for the speedy and extremely useful betas. You both rock! Thanks to [](http://mad-jaks.livejournal.com/profile)[**mad_jaks**](http://mad-jaks.livejournal.com/) for hosting [](http://community.livejournal.com/consci_fan_mo/profile)[**consci_fan_mo**](http://community.livejournal.com/consci_fan_mo/) for its second edition. I had great fun participating last year and was glad to do so again. I always end up stressing at the last minute, but that's my failing :). Title from Robert Frost (obviously). Enjoy.

It wouldn't have happened if the dragon hadn't caught cold.

That was the day that everything went wrong, and Merlin thought it just signified the whole damn mess, except, of course, many things had gone awry before he'd gone down to rant at the dragon, and the beast had sneezed on him.

It had started that morning with Merlin slipping on newly washed floors, and spilling Arthur's breakfast. The result was that he was late, which meant that Arthur was late to an audience with Uther, and consequently Arthur was insufferable the rest of the day.

Rumour had it Uther had called his son a disappointment, and mentioned something about age and incompetence.

Because Arthur was miserable and Uther was angry, a good part of the castle was not happy; Uther took it out on servants and advisors, and Arthur on his knights.

The knights grumbled and some showed up at Gaius' chambers with deep bruises and hurt limbs. Which was how Merlin found out what had happened, and when he went to get the full story out of Gwen, he ran into a pillar while coming around the corner too fast. Of course, Uther chose that moment to walk past and mumbled something about incompetence, and Merlin instantly felt guilty about what had happened that morning again.

The bloody nose the obstinate pillar had given him wouldn't stop, and his magic spell to stop it didn't stop it, although it temporarily turned his blood a strange hue of green, and he had to make his way back to Gaius without attracting attention to the bright liquid on his face.

When he'd skidded into Gaius' room, just in time to avoid a pair of guards with their sharp eyes, Gaius took one look at him and sighed a long suffering sigh, and said something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Merlin, my boy, really."

And Merlin felt guilty. Again.

Luckily, the green-blood spell didn't last long, and the bloody nose could be stemmed, except that now Merlin was late to helping Arthur dress for a feast for a lordling of something-or-other, and as he rushed into Arthur's room, he tripped over the carpet and sprawled face first onto the stone floor.

Well, _ow_.

"_Merlin._"

Arthur's voice drifted through the haze of pain into his consciousness from somewhere, and his nose _hurt_, and he really hoped it wasn't bleeding again. He blinked and tried to ignore that even something that simple hurt, too, and rolled over to look up at Arthur, who seemed torn between looking stern, and laughing his arse off.

Merlin narrowed his eyes at him.

He got up off the floor (without the prat offering so much as a hand to help him up) and said, "Sire."

"Merlin," Arthur replied, and the laughter won.

Merlin decided to not care in the very least, at all, in any way, that for the first time that day, Arthur looked radiant and happy again, and he also refused to think about the feeling was that coiling in his chest, something vaguely warm and nice that he certainly was not going to acknowledge, thank you very much.

"Sometimes," Arthur said, smile still curving his lips, "I wonder how you haven't broken your neck yet."

Merlin gingerly touched his nose and murmured under his breath, "And I wonder how you haven't had yours broken yet."

He turned away and opened Arthur's wardrobe to rummage through it for the clothes for that night's feast, and when he turned back with the right items in hand, the smile was gone from Arthur's face and the light was gone from his eyes.

And Merlin refused to acknowledge the knot in his stomach at seeing that, too.

He helped Arthur dress while forcing himself to think dispassionate thoughts, and ignored the itching in his fingers whenever he noticed the taut line of Arthur's shoulders.

It shouldn't surprise him when Arthur dismissed him instead of ordering him to attend the feast. It didn't, really. A part of Merlin wanted to apologise. Another part stoically refused to acknowledge anything. Again.

Which was how, instead of watching Arthur be joyous and young and _golden_ at that night's festivities, he wound up visiting the dragon.

It laughed at him, in a sniggering-behind-your-hand kind of way, except that instead of hand, the dragon sort of tucked its head sideways under a wing, shook a little, and then turned back to look at Merlin with the smile still curving its lips.

"Ah, young warlock," it intoned, and Merlin wondered if it realised that instead of mysterious or wise, which he suspected the dragon was aiming for, it sounded incredibly pompous, "the misadventures of youth, eh?"

And it sort of shook again, and made a rumbling noise.

Merlin glared at it. "If Arthur is supposed to be my destiny, then it would help if I'm around to fulfill it, right?" Trying to reason with the puffed up lizard was usually wholly ineffectual, but it didn't mean Merlin wouldn't aim for beating it in an argument for once.

"Well," the dragon began, and shook a little more, like hiccups, then frowned at itself. "You are--" It paused, screwed up its face, reared back its head, and sneezed.

Loudly.

The sound echoed around the cavern, but what made Merlin recoil was the long, licking flames that shot out of the dragon's nostrils and reached in his direction.

The heat singed his face and set his neckerchief on fire. Merlin yanked it off quickly, stomped on it, and said, "Oy, watch it!"

The dragon shuffled on its perch, looked a little sheepish, and coughed up some smoke. "Sorry," it said, and the pompous tone was definitely gone now. Merlin smirked a little.

"'s all right," he said magnanimously, and waved a hand, more to clear the smoke than anything else. "I suppose your accommodation is a bit draughty."

The dragon shook a little with laughter again, and finally said, folding its wings around itself with an air of self-importance, "Your princeling is a somewhat challenging destiny to be stuck with, I suppose."

Merlin settled down on the rock face and leaned back. "Well, yeah, he's a challenge, but I mean... I didn't... I think I'm... Well, that is to say..."

The dragon swung its head closer, and laughter lines were crinkling its eyes. "Yes?"

Merlin glared once more at it.

"Could it be that you did not expect destiny to have such a... personable shape?"

Merlin wished he could magic up daggers to lob at the overgrown reptile. "It's not like I haven't considered it. He's... well, you know. But he's not that way inclined and that's _fine_, I mean, far be it for me to, you know, pass judgment about that, but he's just so..." He cast about for a word. "Present."

The dragon sniggered again.

"What?" Merlin demanded.

"You're two sides of the same coin," it said, and smiled, and Merlin had to admit that maybe this time it hit the mark when aiming for mysterious, or perhaps wise. "Two halves of a whole. The Greeks had a theory on that, long ago. I think it was something about... No, it wasn't that." It seemed distracted, but it soon focussed back on Merlin. "The prince's inclinations may well take him by surprise."

"What does that mean?" Merlin demanded once the words had sunk in.

"It is what it is," the dragon replied, and yawned. Then it suddenly yanked its head sideways, and sneezed into the crook of its wing.

Merlin could have sworn the castle shook a little.

"Go now, young warlock, and leave me in peace," the dragon intoned. "I need my rest."

Merlin sketched a wave, kicked the remains of his kerchief into the cavern, and slipped back upstairs into the castle proper.

Arthur wasn't inebriated, golden, or looking youthful when he came back from the feast. Instead he was grumbling, snappish, and just generally angry. He wouldn't stand still long enough for Merlin to take off his belt, never mind his jacket, and all Merlin's thoughts about maybe apologising or just generally being nice to the prat evaporated.

The third time Arthur snapped, "Merlin, you _idiot_," at him, Merlin'd had enough.

"Well, do it yourself, then," he retorted. "In Ealdor we learned how to dress _ourselves_."

Arthur turned around, suddenly, whirling and Merlin ducked out of reach of Arthur's arms, just in case. His nose was still sore, anyhow, and he'd be damned if he'd have another accidental collision.

Arthur froze, looking at him through narrowed eyes, and said, "Oh."

Merlin wanted to say something, but had no words, and in any case, before he could find anything to say, Arthur turned away and stalked to the window, where he stared out onto the courtyard.

Tension was visible in the line of his shoulders, and Merlin's fingers itched again. Finally, he said, "Arthur," softly, just to pull Arthur away from the cold and back to the world and the room.

Arthur shivered, just once, then tensed as if allowing his body that much autonomy was too much.

Silently, Merlin felt his heart break just a little.

It was a standoff, of sorts, between the two of them, and Merlin waited.

Arthur turned, facing him, squaring his feet under his shoulders, raised his chin, and said, voice low, "I would never strike you."

"I know," Merlin replied, and as he spoke he knew the words were true.

"Never, Merlin." Arthur's eyes drilled into his. "I don't hit servants, and never... Not you."

Merlin nodded and stepped forward. In the flickering light from the hearth, he could see the shadows under Arthur's eyes. "I know that."

Arthur came back to his place by the fire, and Merlin returned to stripping him of his clothes and as Arthur dressed for bed, Merlin readied the room.

"Merlin," Arthur said as Merlin put a candle down on the bedside table, "what happened to your hair?"

Merlin rolled up his eyes to look at it, then remembered the dragon and its affliction, which had left some of his fringe scorched and a red mark on his forehead. "Nothing. Just stood too close to a fire."

Arthur's hand reached out and Arthur's fingers ran over his forehead, and Merlin couldn't help sucking in his breath at Arthur's touch, the pads of Arthur's fingers rough against his skin and soft through his hair, as Arthur whispered, "You idiot..."

Merlin froze and Arthur froze, and their eyes met and Merlin reached up, closing his fingers over Arthur's and pulling them away from his face.

Then he gathered every scrap of courage he'd ever had, and, still holding Arthur's hand in his own, he leaned in to kiss Arthur's mouth, soft and determined, and Arthur's fingers squeezed his in surprise.

"Merlin," Arthur said as they came apart, voice gravelly, and Merlin laughed, just a little, because he could.

"Arthur," he replied, smiling, feeling something bubble up in his chest, something ridiculously merry, and he reached out to cup Arthur's head and pull him in for another kiss.

Arthur resisted, pulling back until Merlin let go, and said, "Merlin. How long?"

It took Merlin only a second to parse the question. "Since Bayard, I think. I learnt I couldn't let you die because I needed you to live."

Arthur leaned his forehead against Merlin's. "Ealdor. I had to go because you had to come back. And you're ridiculous with a sword."

Merlin snorted at that, but turned his head a little and pressed his lips to the corner of Arthur's mouth. "Sorry about earlier. Before the feast."

"It was miserable without you," Arthur whispered. "Miserable, and I--" The rest of the sentence was lost, Arthur murmuring while already kissing Merlin's skin, lips ghosting over Merlin's mouth and around his nose and over his cheekbones.

Merlin slipped an arm over Arthur's shoulders and pulled him in, feeling Arthur shaking just slightly against him, and whispered back, "I've got you."

\--  
_finis._


End file.
